Anthology of weird stories

The burning eye

The Himalayas, usually a center of serene beauty, are crackling with an unsettling energy. Dr. Anya Sharma, her usual wild black hair slick with sweat on her forehead, was wrestling with the observatory controls. Outside, the Aurora Borealis, usually a breathtaking display of green and pink, shimmers a pungent, sickly green. It was not Aurora; It was a solar flare, which was scorching the earth continuously for several months.

"Power fluctuations again," Anya muttered, her voice low. The old Russian-made binoculars, a relic of India's Cold War past, were spewing forth like a dying cough. Beside him, Dr. Srinivasan, whose once cheerful face was tinged with worry, had a handkerchief draped over his brow.

"Anya, will there be another flare-up soon? The grid can't afford it."

Anya turned her face away. "I know. We're on borrowed time, Srinivas. But listen!"

He pointed towards the screen. A rhythmic beep, unlike any astronomical signal they had ever encountered, pulsated on the monitor. It was a deep, insistent sound that vibrated through the room.

"What is that?" Srinivasan looked over his shoulder, his curiosity momentarily overriding his fear.

"I don't know," Anya admitted, a spark of excitement burning in her tired eyes. "But it's coming..."

He tapped the screen and highlighted a pale red dot on the galaxy map, far away from our own galaxy. "A dying star."

Days turned into weeks as Anya and Srinivasan got lost in the signal. Working through the night, fueled by dwindling rations and stale coffee, he deciphered fragments of the message. It was complex, mathematical in nature, seemed to be a blueprint of something...

"shield?" Srinivasan raised his eyebrows, a note of disbelief in his voice. "Anya, what do we have? The government is ready to shut us down at any moment. They need resources, not distant fantasies."

His concerns were justified. News broadcast from Delhi via ham radio reported food shortages, power cuts and increasing social unrest. The government, which was searching for a solution, saw the observatory as a waste of resources.

Desperate, Anya contacted Dr. David Baker, a reclusive astronomer living off the grid in the foothills. Baker, a controversial figure who was ostracized for his frontier principles, was their last hope.

The journey to the Baker's dilapidated hut was perilous. Irregular climate caused dust storms. Armed sanitation workers roamed the highways, desperate for resources. Finally, they found him, a strange man with wild, salt-and-pepper hair and eyes shining with unnerving intelligence.

"Message from a dying star, you say?" Baker stroked his beard, his eyes fixed on a star chart on the wall of the hut. "Interesting. Maybe not a message, but... a warning."

Baker's interpretation of the signal as a plan for a giant energy shield sent a chill down Anya's spine. It was audacious, bordering on the impossible, but the urgency of the situation left them with no other option.

The blueprints outlined a complex structure requiring rare elements and cutting-edge technology. India, once a rising space power, is now struggling to maintain infrastructure. Anya, Srinivasan and Ravi, a resourceful young technician who has joined them, set out on a desperate mission.

They bargained with nomadic traders for rare metals, their supplies dwindling day by day. They escaped checkpoints manned by panicked soldiers, their research deemed irrelevant by a government focused on survival. In a terrifying encounter, they barely escape from a gang of robbers, their jeep riddled with bullets.